From the current edition of DNA, everyone’s favourite gay-mag-by-numbers (ingredients: biographical article on a “diva”, article on a slightly disturbing sex fetish, vaguely serious story on either gay oppression in a foreign country or AIDS, photo shoots of straight male models frolicking at the beach, feature attempting to pass off a porn star as intellectual heavyweight, shameless pay-for-plug mentions of AussieBum underwear every third paragraph, embarassingly cliched ‘humour’ articles, gaping absence of lesbians despite targeting the gay community at large)… where was I?

Oh yes. From the current issue of DNA:

Are You Ready for Aussie Man?

…how many times have you rocked up to a hot sex date only to find that your fuck buddy looks nothing like his online picture or has lied about his age? …The next generation of on-line man hunting could change all that. A new site, AussieMan.net is planning to launch in February this year.

…Unlike other services, AussieMan.net will be offering exclusive memberships - no, not everyone in the world can join up. Private invitations are currently being issued to the hottest guys in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Also, members’ photos are going to be screened and edited.

And from the website itself, AussieMan.net:

You have to be HOT ENOUGH. All pictures are screened to make sure only the hottest men in Oz can join our ranks!

Watch for us in clubs and bars all over Australia with DNA coverboys who will be passing out 500 complimentary VIP memberships to the hottest guys in town.

Where to begin with my equal revulsion and boggledom?

Who defines “hot enough”? Since when did some select group of professional homos narrowly define what the world is supposed to consider an attractive man?

I mean, I’m usually uncontrollably attracted to pretty much every dude in a metal band, ever. Not everyone’s thing. Yet I sense that they may not pass the screaming insistence of AussieMan.net’s “YOU HAVE TO BE HOT ENOUGH!!!!!” gay male standards.

Fuck’s sake, men aside, I also want to have sex with Patrick Starfish from Spongebob, and Prickle from Gumby (did you ever see him playing solos on his plasticine bass guitar? Wicked hot). Are they HOT ENOUGH!!!!!? Do they ascend to the unrealistic goals of AUSSIEMAN.NET’S UNEDITED MEMBER PHOTOS OF SEXUAL APOGEE?

Young gay dudes - in fact, anyone who’s a traditional society outsider and just coming to terms with their identity (eg Channel 7) has enough complex issues to deal with, let alone being confronted with ridiculously demeaning “entry to the gay club” elitist websites like this.

If gay nightclubs are where this website are finding their initial stable of “OMG HOT ENOUGH!!!!” guys, then I’ll be the first to put my hand up and grunt that their definitions of HOT!! are not quite in line with my own - nor I expect most other guys (just like Channel 7’s programming grid).

Maintaining an overwhelmingly oppressive and non-inclusive business by scaring off - nay, limiting to the point of being draconian - your customer base? Fucking awesome business plan, guys. Wish I’d thought of it first.

DNA - as much as I might dig fun at you, you are a magazine who recently dedicated special pages in a couple of consecutive issues to the single letter of a 30-something guy struggling with his sexual identity, who couldn’t identify with the “gay scene” around him, and your readers’ passionate reactions - you should know better than to get involved with this.

On top of all this, AussieMan.net, you’re completely ruining the stereotype we’ve all screwed so hard to establish: gay men love to fuck anyone with a dick. I’m not going to let this website create the oxymoron of men who by definition have sex with everyone, only having sex with a select few people.

Just looking at AussieMan.net’s website for too long gives me the feeling that somewhere far away, distant galaxies are being extinguished.

Never mind. I’ve got a far more pressing oxymoron to deal with tomorrow night: Foxtel celebrities.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 21st, 2005 at 10:05 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.